Midwestern Taco Salad

Have you ever heard of fusion cooking?  It's where you blend one cooking style with another, like Asian-Indian, or Korean-French.  This taco salad is total fusion cooking.  It's Midwestern Mexican.   

Over Labor Day weekend we went to my brother's house in North Dakota, where my precious teeny tiny niece was baptized.  (She's an angel).  My sister-in-law's family all came from Minnesota and graciously brought heaps of good food.  One of those dishes was a taco salad that everyone raved about.  Including me.

So why Midwestern Mexican?  Because it has salad dressing in it, and crunched up chips.  Two hallmarks of a good Midwestern dish.  It's classic casserole meets south-of-the-border.

It's also dang easy.  Some chopped up lettuce...

    
Browned ground beef with taco seasoning.

 Diced red onions.

Some corn. 

And black beans.

 Shredded cheddar jack.  Of course.

And black olives if you like them.

At this point you add Western dressing.  I'm sure that is what made the taco salad I tried at my brother's house so good.  But this is the deal.  I read the nutrition information on the label and totally chickened out.  I couldn't just dump a small bottle of it in.  It's naughty stuff.  So instead I used about a half cup of Western dressing and a cup and a half of taco sauce.  If you don't care about things like fat and calories, then by all means increase the amount of Western dressing and decrease the amount of taco sauce.  You do what's right for you.  It's going to taste better if you use more Western.  It's going to be healthier if you don't.

And here's the silly part.  After all that concern about nutrition, add 3 to 4 cups of broken up taco-flavored Doritos and mix again.

It's a total family pleaser, and easy enough to throw together on a school night after you get home late and the kids are starving.  

It's muy bueno, amigos.  

Yep, you betcha, it is.

Midwestern Taco Salad
Adapted from a verbal recipe shared by my sister-in-law's mom Sandy

1.5 lbs ground beef
packet taco seasoning
lettuce, shredded
1 red onion, diced
2 cups shredded cheddar jack
1 can of corn, drained
1 can of black beans, rinsed
1 can sliced olives
1 small bottle of Western salad dressing--use to taste
1 small bottle of taco sauce--use to taste
3-4 cups crushed Doritos

Brown the ground beef, then add taco seasoning and stir until well combined.  Meanwhile, chop one head of lettuce and place in a large bowl.  Top with ground beef, onion, corn, beans, olives and cheese.  In a separate bowl combine dressing and taco seasoning--you decide how much of each to use.  I used between 2 and 2.5 cups of combined sauce, about half cup of dressing and the rest taco sauce.  It may taste better if you use just one small bottle of dressing and no taco sauce, but more taco sauce and less dressing will be more healthy.  Up to you.  Add the sauce to the large bowl on top of the other ingredients and mix well.  Then add crushed chips and stir until the chips are mixed in.  Serve immediately or the chips will get soggy.  Enjoy some Midwest-tex-mex!